


lamentation

by honey_sweet



Series: red dead drabbles [2]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Arthur is sad, Character Death, Comfort, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Mourning, Post-Chapter 5: Guarma (Red Dead Redemption 2), arthur cries, burial, chapter 4 and 5 spoilers, lakay camp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 16:26:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18237368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honey_sweet/pseuds/honey_sweet
Summary: lamentation: the passionate expression of grief or sorrow; weepingarthur mourns the loss of a loved one.





	lamentation

**Author's Note:**

> are you all ready to get sad? 
> 
> arthur is processing some emotions here and it's up to you to comfort him when he needs it most.

Warm and muggy wind, heavy air and miserable rain. It was so damp, constantly. The ground was so soft it had sunk so easily under the wagon wheels as you rolled into the area. Sadie and Charles had cleared this place of the previous inhabitants, and you were lucky enough that the locals were terrified of the place. Night folk were not something to be messed with, but Sadie and Charles had driven them off nevertheless. You hated Strauss, but had to admit you were grateful he could think of somewhere to lie low a while.  
Until the men got back. You had helped Sadie run the place as best as either of you could on short notice, and Charles had been nothing short of solid help.

They had been gone for weeks now. How long would it take for the men to return? Hosea wasn’t here to give his wisdom, and you missed his company. He was pretty much your father after all this time, and you knew Arthur felt the exact same way about him.

Little Lenny had been buried beside him.  
You hated to call a funeral ‘lovely,’ but the union of the people around those two graves was heartbreaking. With Dutch and Arthur in Guarma and John in Sisika Penitentiary after the botched robbery in Saint Denis, you were the most senior member the gang had.  
It seemed fitting that you were the one to lower Hosea into his grave, and all you thought as you did so was that when Arthur returned, you knew you would bring him here alone to say goodbye properly. 

You weren’t sure how he would take it. He was a man you had known since adolescence, just like John. You three were Dutch and Hosea’s earliest family, the children they chose. They were your mentors from almost childhood so it was obvious you’d see them a family. You were family. You are family. And you had lowered your father into his grave all the same. Little Lenny laid still beside him.  
‘‘Blessed be those, who hunger and strive for righteousness,’’ Intoned Swanson, reciting a passage Hosea had quoted to you in your early days, and Arthur seemed to like as well. You knew it off by heart.  
‘‘And blessed be those who mourn, for they shall be comforted,’’ He finished, waiting for you to stand from lowering Hosea. Charles placed a hand on your shoulder as all eyes laid on you. It was up to you to fill in the grave slowly as Abigail held onto Jack and pretended not to cry behind you.  
You rode Arthur’s horse back to camp after that. It seemed fitting somehow. A piece of Arthur was there with you and Hosea when you needed it.

You hated to say funerals were ‘lovely,’ but the whole thing was a beautiful way to be laid to rest. 

That had been over a week ago now, after you had robbed the morgue with Sadie and Charles. There were days where you would wake in the Lakay shacks and think that this would be the end of your life. Between the people who were with you, there were less than ten people who would be able to defend themselves if it came to it. Tilly and Karen, Abigail perhaps. Susan, Sadie, Charles and Yourself. Pearson maybe, Uncle and Strauss not so much. Besides lacking the manpower, it was also the gun-power that doomed you in a gunfight. You feared there wasn’t enough to defend yourselves from the Night Folk, least of all the Pinkertons. 

Some part of you wondered what would actually happen if they never came back. Charles told you how he had given the others a window to escape on a boat to god knows where. What if they never returned? Clearly you all couldn’t live in Lakay forever, there would come a time where one by one you would either die off or cut loose. One by one you would drift without resistance until there was no body left around. One by one the Night Folk would pick you off, or a fever would take you, or you would starve slowly, or a wandering alligator would catch you unawares. It was a cruel world, and you had no plans. They were looking to you frequently. You were taking Dutch’s place while they were absent. 

_Blessed be those who mourn, for they will be comforted._

It had rained again overnight. You knew the ground was already sodden and waterlogged as usual before you had even stepped outside the cabin. Your temporary repairs had to suffice, even if they were pitiful to say the least.  
It was early morning, and you were sat stoic in the chair at the back of the cabin. Sadie had walked out with a repeater for her lookout duty. Karen and Mary-Beth traipsed around the front room of the pitiful shack until Grimshaw would inevitably pick them up for work. Pearson and Abigail were outside cleaning fish.  
Beside you, Jack was curled up on his bedroll. In front of you, Charles sat with his legs folded while he braided his hair back.  
‘‘You’ve been skittish for days,’’ He commented.  
‘‘That’s normal, though.’’ How could you even begin to defend your recent mental absence?  
‘‘You’ve been so disconnected. How much have you slept since Saint Denis?’’  
‘‘I don’t know, Charles. I can’t think past the most simple things. It’s just one thing at a time before I shut down. People are asking me to make plans for them and I can barely look after myself any more.’’  
‘‘Nobody is expecting you to work miracles, you know.’’  
‘‘I miss Hosea.’’  
‘‘He was a great man, and I know he was like a father to you. He deserved a better life than the one he had.’’  
‘‘He made the most of it though, didn’t he?’’  
‘‘I can’t pretend to know him any better than you knew him, he was closer to you than anyone else. But I believe that man did everything he could, and did right by all the people he could in his life.’’

There was shouting outside, and your mind was divided. Part of you knew it was the inevitable danger catching up with your band of murderers and thieves. Part of you hoped that it was the men returning.

Part of you was correct.

Arthur stood in the mud, being held by Abigail and Pearson. They rushed him inside and Grimshaw handed him a metal bowl of stew. He came and sat by you, the first to return. His nice shirt had been ruined and salt stained and muddied, ripped and charred and bloodied. He seemed slightly sunburnt, although it was hard to tell beneath the full beard he had grown in the weeks he had been away. The voices surrounding him were loud, but slowly they died down after some panic had been placated within the rest of the gang.  
‘‘You need a change of clothes,’’ You said, ushering him away to his possessions a while after he was finally left alone.  
‘‘You’re telling me,’’ He mumbled, dropping his random weaponry to the ground. He ran water from a basin over his face, through his hair. Swapped his clothes into normal attire. You chose instead to clean up his guns, if they even were his.  
‘'I think you’re in need of a shave, too’’you commented, watching him slide on his work boots.  
‘‘Wouldn’t hurt,’’ He said, moving to sit in a nearby chair. You sorted through his trunk of things, trying to find his razor.

He was quiet in his seat as you knelt between his legs to reach up and shave his beard away.  
‘‘Hosea and Lenny?’’ He finally broke the silence.  
‘‘We buried them a while back. I’ll take you there in the morning.’’  
‘‘What was it like?’’  
‘‘Swanson read that passage he loved so much. Me and Charles filled in the graves,’’ You shifted, moving to trim at his jawline easier. ‘‘Side by side. Not going to be bothered by anyone. I wanted to take him back to where his Bessie is, but we all knew that wasn’t going to happen.’’  
‘‘He was a better father than either of ours ever were – or could dream to be.’’  
‘‘I wish you’d have been there to say goodbye with us all.’’  
‘‘Me too, but it still means something no matter who hears it, or how late it is.’’

That same night had been an ambush, as through the day the rest of the men had returned, Dutch and Bill being the last ones to show up around nightfall. Arthur was told to go with Charles through Murfree country come morning time, but he told Dutch there was some unfinished business to attend to. Dutch said he couldn’t bring himself to go see it.  
You could understand that at least. Wasn’t really something pleasant to put yourself through, anyway. It was already a dice roll of how Arthur would take it, would he be able to process a loss so significant?  
You’d hate to see him just shut down and lose what little faith he already had in himself. 

‘‘It’s just around here,’’ You said, breaking the silence of your horses hooves.  
Neither of you had slept much last night, and it was adding to the sombre spirits in camp. 

People had been moving corpses well into the morning. 

‘‘Are you going to be okay?’’ Softer, after Arthur’s lack of replies.  
‘‘I don’t know,’’ was all he said in return.  
You both dismounted into the soft ground. It was far enough out of the swamp that the alligators wouldn’t dig at them, but it was far away from the city and the road to prevent travellers from just stumbling onto them.  
It was pretty when the light filtered through the leaves above them.  
You left the horses hitched a few meters away. 

‘‘Nice place.’’  
‘‘Nice as we could do,’’ you replied.  
‘‘I hate to say it’s ‘lovely,’ but its a nice spot for them both.’’

You stood back and let him make his own peace with it.  
‘‘Hosea, I- I’m sorry I weren’t able to do more. We shouldn’t have fixed that bank. I wish you were still here. I hope I was a good enough son to you. My real father was terrible, you know that. But I, uh. You were the father I hoped for. And I’m sorry I could not do more to save you.’’  
He stood there, holding his hat and looking down at the shallow graves.  
‘‘Lenny. Dear Lenny. You were a good kid. Such a good kid. I’m so sorry you got caught up in this as well. We trusted each other with our lives and I could not do more to save you despite the faith you had in me.’’  
‘‘Arthur, none of it were your fault,’’  
‘‘Well it sure feels like it,’’ He said, sitting down beside you in the grass. ‘‘That I made it out and they didn’t? That makes it all feel like my fault.’’  
After a while he pulled out his journal to sketch the place, write down his own obituary for them.  
‘‘The others will move on so easily,’’ He said a while later. ‘‘I wish I could get over this like the others. I wish it didn’t hurt so damn bad.’’  
‘‘Arthur,’’ You began, sitting up properly shoulder to shoulder with him. ‘‘The fact that the others will move on so easily is a testament to how much they meant to you, and you to them.’’  
‘‘I can love them without hurting, though. Surely it can be that way again?’’  
‘‘Sometimes loving someone is hurting so deeply for them. You of all people should know this. Love and grief work in different ways. Your grief makes you feel guilty, and your love reminds you of what you once had. When he first died, I felt nothing. It shames me to admit it, Arthur. But I was so empty. I didn’t even cry. I thought it must make me so horrible, so heartless. I thought it meant I had never loved him, but I knew I did. I realised it was my grief working in different ways, Arthur.’’  
‘‘I’d like to think you’re right,’’ He replied, after a small pause for contemplation. 

Just as the sun was reaching mid afternoon in the sky, you both decided it was time to leave. Neither of you said goodbye again, it had already been said a long, long time ago. It broke your heart to see Arthur cry as he stood by his horse, but you knew it was best to let him grieve. He looked so unable to mount his horse and walk away.  
‘‘I can’t.’’ He said, one hand on his saddle with tears brimming in his eyes. You moved around your horse to his in an attempt to comfort him.  
‘‘If I ride off, it will be too final. I can’t do it. I can’t,’’ he pleaded with you.  
‘‘Arthur, you’re torturing yourself here.’’ You rested your head on his shoulder as he lowered his head to his saddle and cried. Truly cried.  
‘‘I know.’’ He said.  
‘‘Blessed be those who mourn, for they will be comforted,’’ you quoted, reaching to wrap your arms around his middle.  
_‘‘For they will be comforted,’’_ he echoed. He placed a hand on your head and righted himself until he would swing his foot into the stirrup and mount his horse. 

You two walked the horses away slowly, eventually rejoining the main road. 


End file.
